Shawn Anto
Shawn Anto is from Delano, California. He was originally from Kerala, India. His writing has been featured or is forthcoming in “Reed Magazine,” “El Portal,” “Sierra Nevada Review,” and elsewhere.
The Hourglass Sea and its Ghost
by Shawn Anto
‘India lost one-third of its coastline from erosion. The National Centre for Coastal Research surveyed 6,031 kilometers of India’s 7,517-kilometre coastline from 1990 to 2016’
‘two micro-continents were found in the Indian Ocean that would link the theory that India and Australia were once connected’
the real map is cyclone blurry
rain-sediment smudged
pinpointed, erased
I forgot
where home was.
each year
my feet
my hands
touch
different parts
of the Bay
the beach
Kerala has
a new face.
piece all land back together
homelands, eroded land, land receding
Indian aboriginal bone, found on another land
found colonized, by white hands, hidden
links history and time, the separation
with more loss
if my people
spoke of their secrets
dredged from
this deep saltiness
what would appear
or disappear
fish out of
harbor each loss in
a place to remember
which
has
sunk
down.